I downloaded the latest version of flash player -- 11.3.300.257 -- and noticed a few odd things.

First of all there are two incidents of "FlashPlayerPlugin_11_3_300_257.exe" running in my Windows 7 task manager whenever I use an application with fash content.

More important, I happend to look at my Firefox 13 crash reporter and noticed that it had filed a crash report every time I closed out the program since updating the Flash Player. Prior to that, it had not crashed before. All told, there were about a dozen crash reports, and they were all identical, with the exception of the incident numbers, etc.

Thanks for taking the time to report this to us. Would you mind opening a new bug at bugbase.adobe.com with this info (and a link to this thread). If possible, we'd also like to get one or two of your Mozilla report ID's so we can investigate further. Finally, could you try disabling the Flash Player's protected mode to see if that resolves the problem?

I tried disabling the protected mode feature, and I was able to call it up using Notepad, but couldn't figure out how I should save it. I've never done anything like that before.

When I add the text line, as instructed, I click on save, but it wants to save it in my Document's folder where I have all of my other text files saved. Should I save it there, and then move it to the Macromedia folder or what?

I tried, again, to diable the protected mode, and this time, figured out that it WAS being saved in the correct place, but when I clicked on save, and was prompted to replace the existing file, I was greeted with the "ACCESS DENIED" screen. Since I do have Administrative rights for this computer, I'm a bit baffled at that.

In any event, hopefully this issue is something that can be fixed quickly. I'd hate to think I'm the only person on the face of the earth that has experienced this so far--would be just my luck.

Thanks for adding the bug so quickly. I suspect you might run into a problem saving with notepad in this location. I ended up saving the mms.cfg to my desktop, then I moved it using windows explorer. I'm attaching a copy here if you'd like to use that instead.

I was able to edit the mms.cfg file by saving the new version in my documents folder, deleting the original, and then dragging and dropping the edited version into the Flash file. Interestingly, I no longer see "FlashPlayerPlugin_11_3_300_257.exe" running in my Windows 7 task manager. The plug-in container is listed, instead.

So far (knock wood) there have been no new crash reports, but I'll post back later to reconfirm. Looking over some of the comments filed with Firefox--as part of the crash report site-- it seems that this might have been a problem during the beta testing, if I'm reading them correctly.

You mean the URL of the crash report I submitted above, or is there one that resides on my PC that I should submit. If so, how do I find it, call it up, copy and or attach it, etc. to the existing bug report? (Again, all of this is very new to me.)

Again, many thanks to all of your for your prompt attention to this.

By the say, I've opened and closed out Firefox several times now, and no new crashes have been reported since I tweaked the mms.cfg file.

The crash report link you provided was definitely a known issue in the beta, but we believe it's resolved at this point. Firefox saves all of your crash logs, so if you were running the beta, that may be what you're seeing. It's also possible that our fix isn't 100% effective -- it's timing-related and really hard to reproduce -- but you can see a drastic reduction in the incidence of the crash (the Mozilla folks point this out as well) in the statistics.

The release version of Flash Player 11.3 contains a fix for this crash. I'm not able to reproduce the issue on my end using Firefox 13 and Flash Player 11.3.300.257 at this point. I'll leave my stress-testing suite running over the weekend to see if I can catch anything, though. If you happen to run across steps that consistently cause a crash (it might be specific to doing those things while visiting specific content), that would be super helpful.

Anyway, by making those mms.cfg modifications, you've disabled Protected Mode.

If you're interested in the implementation and why you see a difference in processes displayed, there's a good write-up here:

Just so there's no misunderstanding, I am, indeed, using the released version of 11.3, which I downloaded from this site -- http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ -- using the update link this morning. (I perfer to manually update the software, because I don't want to have another anti virus packaged installed on my system and clashing with the one I already have. That happened to me before and it was a real headache to get everything resolved.)

I just looked and think I found the crash dump files and think this is what you mean?

Just to let you know that I updated my Bug Report -- https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3209832 -- adding an attached doc file containing my Firefox configuration settings. I also added a note describing the security settings I use for Adobe Flash Player, just in case any of this information may be relevant.

I'm wondering, now that I've pretty much verified that the new security setting is what is causing my Firefox browser to crash on exit, if I should reenable Flash Player's protected mode? I realize that this is a security feature, but I hate to think of hundreds and hundreds of crash logs piling up, until a real fix is found. (I open and close my browser dozens of times per day, since I work at home, and so many of the business related sites I access use flash content. The only non-business site I look at is YouTube, btw.)

Also, I should mention that this is what I'd call a "silent crash." The only way I found out about it was because I happened to check out my crash history by typing about:crashes in my Firefox address bar. (I actually did this because I wanted to see if there were any crash reports concerning the recently installed version of Firefox 13, and not the Flash Player, per se.)

Since most users would probably not routinely check their crash reports, and since no indication of a crash is provided by Firefox when it happens, I would guess that this is crashing on other systems, but people don't know about it yet.

Hopefully, a solution will be found soon.

Again, thanks for all the help you've provided so far. You guys are great!

Yes, this seems to be the case. I suspect that it's crashing all over the place, but FF users simply don't know about it yet. The only reason I found out was because I just happened to check "about:crashes" in FF. In other words, there were no warnings displayed that would indicate that a crash had taken place when I restarted FF. Everything seemed to function normally, including sites with Flash content.

As an experiment, I re-enabled protection last night, and the same scenario happened. BUT, this time I noticed that I didn't even have to exit FF for it to happen! Based on what I can see, itt seems to take place when going from a site WITH Flash content, to another WITHOUT Fash content.

For instance, to test, I went from Google News, which has an embedded flash video, to my regular home page--Google Advanced Search--which doesn't. Then, I went to Youtube, where I clicked on one video. From there, I went back to my home page and closed FF. When I reopened FF, and checked about:crashes, THREE new crash reports had been posted!

I have since disabled protected mode, and will keep it that way until a fix is found. It seems more and more people are posting about this, so that gives me some confidence that a fix WILL be found.

Yes, I did see that one, and it looks like the same issue. Many thanks for adding it here. The more comprehensive the "database" becomes, and as more and more crash and bug reports are linked together, the more likely it will be that a solution will be found.

Along this line, I've taken the liberty of emailing my friends and relatives, whom I know use Firefox, prompting them to check for crash reports using "about:crashes," and advising them to post on this board if they are having this problem.

While I don't like the idea of using Flash Player 11.3.300.257 with the protection disabled, I figure it's probably no worse than using an earlier version of the software--as well as Fire Fox--which I was forced to do when I was using my eight year old PC (now dead). That was finally replaced in April.

Funny, I thought when I got a new up to date PC, with all the latest hardware and software, there would be no more issues. Turns out, more have surfaced in the past two months than I ever had to deal with in the eight previous years!

Due to the number of threads and bugs I'm seeing on this, I'm not real sure where to tack on my information. Because I never had any notice that a crash had occurred and videos were playing fine, I thought everything was fine.

(I did that, as have others, and it stops the crashes from happening.)

Then, we'll all have to wait until Adobe or Firefox can develop a repair for this problem. I'm encouraged that this will happen soon because a growing number of people are now aware of this and not just on this forum:

By Matty_M -- "Adobe got rid of separate downloads for both 32bit and 64bit and with the latest version 11.3.300.257, you can only download install_flash_player.exe and install_flash_player_ax.exe, which includes both 32bit and 64bit and now the Flash plugins both 32bit and 64bit are INSTALLED automatically in separate folders C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash and C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash and I think this is the part FF 13 got confused and got lost, lol."

Looking at my System32 folder, I see that FlashUtil64_11_3_300_257_Plugin.exe is listed,

...and in my SysWow64 folder, FlashUtil32_11_3_300_257_Plugin.exe is listed, as is FlashPlayerPlugin_11_3_300_257.exe

I've configured Flash Player to not automatically check for and install updates, so I always download Flash Player updates manually from this site -- http://www.adobe.com/software/flash/about/ (clicking on the hard to spot "Player Download Center" link to the installation.) You'll notice that they also give you the option of installing some free virus checker software, which I always uncheck. I don't know if the anti-virus software is automatically sent to customers who opt for automatic installation of updates, so that's why I do all of this manually.

Normally, when I see a new version listed, I wait a few weeks to see if there have been any issues reported before installing it. This time, however, figuring that it was an important security related update, I threw caution to the wind and downloaded it the minute it was posted. Never again....

Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not a techie, so I only have a very basic understanding of this new-fangled digital stuff. (If it has a crank sticking out the side of it, I might be able to figure it out. )

Looking over some of the discussions on the Mozilla help forum, awareness of this issue seems to be growing rapidly. (I'm surprised that the mainstream media hasn't picked up on this yet! Is Walt Mossberg on vacation?)

I'm also glad to see that you've posted a troubleshooting guide on the main page of the Flash Player forum, but looking at some of the newly posted questions coming in, asking about the crashes, it seems that not everyone has spotted it. It may be a good idea to post a copy of the announcement on the sub-forums--Installing Flash Player; Using Flash Player--as well.

I can't make heads or tales out of the report---way, way, way too technical for me, and too many jumps to pages that I can't understand. If a solution to the silent crashes HAS been found, I'm not sure what it is, but hopefully, we'll all hear something soon.